New Orleans City Council officials get hot under the collar at meeting

While temperatures soared toward triple digits this week, tempers flared white-hot at a meeting of the New Orleans City Council's Utility Committee.

New Orleans City Council Utility Committee Chairwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, left, moved to reconsider the vote when committee member Susan Guidry, right, arrived.

The committee had a single, seemingly noncontroversial item on its agenda Monday: recommending that the council issue a "request for qualifications" of legal and technical consultants who would like to assist the council in regulating the city's electric and gas utilities, primarily Entergy New Orleans.

The council last issued such a request two years ago, eliciting responses almost solely from the same team of advisers who have been working with the council for many years. Such requests normally are reissued every five years, but because of a dispute among committee members, the 2009 solicitation was for only two years.

Utility Committee Chairwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell described the new request as a chance to encourage local firms "to take a really good look" at the opportunity to apply for the lucrative council contracts. The council's chief advisers now are from out of town.

Hedge-Morrell and Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, an alternate on the committee and the only other member present, voted 2-0 to recommend the proposal to the full council, but a few moments later Councilwoman Susan Guidry arrived, and Hedge-Morrell moved to reconsider the vote so she could participate.

Guidry then asked why it was necessary to issue a new solicitation. "It's not like we've been waiting since the storm or before the storm" to seek new consultants, she said, noting that the council did the same thing in 2009.

Councilwoman Stacy Head then arrived and said it was "disconcerting" that she hadn't received more advance notice of the meeting, scheduled late the previous week.

"We don't have regularly scheduled Utility Committee meetings, and we often get (notices of) them, I would consider, at the last minute," Head said. As a "matter of professional courtesy," she requested that meetings be set for every other month, or with two weeks' notice.

"It happens not just with the Utility Committee," she said. "It happens with most committees."

The public airing of council members' grievances went on for another half-hour, perhaps reaching a climax when Hedge-Morrell said she challenged "the validity" of Guidry's remarks after Guidry said others had also questioned whether the committee meets more often than necessary.

"I take offense," Hedge-Morrell said, "and I want to go on record to say that I take offense that -- I just take offense."

"Well, I'm very sorry that you do," Guidry said.

"No, you're not," Hedge-Morrell shot back.

In the end, the committee voted 2-1 not to recommend the proposal to the full council, with Guidry and Head siding against Hedge-Morrell. Because all three full committee members by then were present, Palmer, the alternate, could no longer vote.

The measure will still be sent to the council, but without the committee's recommendation.

"This is simply to demonstrate to the public that we are doing due diligence, and I am just baffled -- I'm baffled," an exasperated Hedge-Morrell said.